The GroupSwim Diving Board

I’ve been thinking about the difference between implementing a collaboration application for business versus more traditional applications like ERP, CRM, etc. (insert other acronym here).  I’ll try not to be biased but I believe that implementing an application like GroupSwim is different and easier.  First, let’s list a couple of assumptions and my conclusions:

Assumption #1: The amount of archived/older information that people rely on for their day-to-day knowledge-based jobs is relatively small

Conclusion #1: The need for collaboration software to integrate with older documents and information stores is minor but often overblown.  I know this flies in the face of tradition, but I think it is true.  From what I’ve experienced, people use a small subset of documents, resources, etc. and do most of their work from their inbox and on specific documents that are part of their current plate of work.  This isn’t necessarily a good thing but is reality; people aren’t accessing 1 year old plus documents very often.  For example, if you are product manager, you probably do most of your work on current product specs, analysis, customer focus groups, etc..  If you are a sales person, you use a small set of documents (marketing collateral, emails you like to send, account plans, contracts, etc.) to find and close deals.  The list goes on but you get it.  So, I don’t think making every single document every created available to a new system is important.  There is no doubt that there is a group of documents (training, in process files, etc.) that are important, but they can be added manually or integrated without trying to integrate everything.

Assumption #2: Collaborative work is dynamic and constantly changing

Conclusion #2: There are few examples of a “best” time to roll-out a collaborative solution.  Employees are constantly collaborating on something so just get started.  There are reasonable examples of where it makes sense.  For example, if a group get reorganized, or a new project or process gets kicked off, etc., these are good times to start using a collaborative solution like GroupSwim.  However, my conclusion is that now is as good a time as any to get started.  I think that most “knowledge” work requires collaboration on an every day basis, so there is no time like the present to bite the bullet and get started.

Assumption #3: Collaboration is an ill-defined process at best

Conclusion #3: The change management and leadership required to make people collaborate differently is even more onerous than traditional systems.  For example, when you implement a new CRM, ERP or whatever, your work process to get things done “must” change.  You are essentially forced to modify the way you work whether you like or not based on the new system you must use.  With a system like GroupSwim or other collaborative solutions, you can still use email and other means to get work done even though the outcome and process might suck.  So, it is incumbent on a champion and other internal leaders to make sure people buy-in and use new collaborative tools like GroupSwim to change the they work.  Eventually, they will get it and not require the oversight but it is critically important in the beginning to change habits.

Taking all three points into consideration, I think the collaboration implementations generally overestimate the need to integrate and deal with technical issues and underestimate the need for leadership and change management.  It is always harder to change people’s work habits and soft skills versus changing a discrete process or operational system.  What do you think?